Eschalon: Book I

Introduction

Eschalon: Book I is where Basilisk Games' old-school CRPG trilogy started: a tile-based, turn-based RPG built around the idea that absolutely every action — a swing, a spell, a skill check — gets individually rolled and resolved, the way a tabletop session would run it. It shipped as a direct download on 19 November 2007, reached Steam in February 2009, and in 2017 Basilisk Games made it permanently free to mark the game's tenth anniversary — a detail several reviewers in this outlet's sample cite directly as the reason they gave a visibly dated indie RPG a chance at all. This outlet reviewed the middle entry, Eschalon: Book II, earlier this week and found real, specific tactical improvements over this first game; reading Book I's own sample afterward makes clear those improvements were responses to genuine, specific complaints players had about the original, not invented problems.

The depth the comparisons to Ultima and Elder Scrolls are actually about

When this review's sample reaches for a comparison, it reaches for specific, well-chosen ones: "a nice little time killer... somewhere between Ultima 7 and Diablo I," reads one representative positive review, and another independently lands on the same Ultima comparison while praising the game's slow-burn story. What those comparisons are actually describing, on closer reading, is a genuine commitment to systemic depth over convenience: a turn-based structure where every single action in the world resolves in order, a character sheet with enough attributes and skills that multiple reviewers describe real decision-making in how they built their character, and an unhurried story that reviewers who finish it — typically in 20 to 25 hours — describe as more absorbing than its plain, generic-sounding premise suggests on a store page.

Two complaints serious enough to treat as real defects, not just dated taste

Two specific technical complaints recur often enough in this review's sample that they read as defects rather than a matter of old-fashioned taste. The first is walking speed: "the walking speed in this game is abysmal, and there is no way to even speed it up," reads one review, and a separate reviewer independently calls it "too darn slow" in describing why they couldn't get into the game at all. The second is the game's fixed 800x600 resolution, which multiple reviewers flag specifically as a barrier to playing comfortably on a modern monitor, with at least one saying they can't recommend the game until it's addressed. Layered on top of both is a real, recurring set of compatibility reports on modern Windows — launch failures, crackling audio, and compatibility-mode settings that don't resolve the problem — which is a different, more basic complaint than pacing or resolution: several reviewers in the current sample simply couldn't get the game running at all.

A combat system the sample is genuinely split on

Combat draws the sharpest disagreement in this review's sample. Several reviewers describe it as shallow once the initial options are learned — "melee is auto-attack spam for the entire game," one writes, and a more detailed review argues the wide array of listed skills and origins amounts to an "illusion of choice" that resolves into building one of two viable archetypes regardless of what a player picks at character creation. Other reviewers push back directly on this, citing genuine variety between a mage-focused playthrough and a melee one, and describing "a real good wizard power fantasy" from leaning into spellcasting specifically. This review can't resolve which account is more representative, but the fact that both are argued with specific, concrete detail — not just a star rating — suggests the truth sits somewhere in between: real build variety exists, but it may be narrower in practice than the character sheet first suggests.

What the sequel changed, and what that confirms about this game

Reviewing Book II immediately before this one gives this outlet a useful, concrete check on which of Book I's complaints were real rather than individual taste. Book II's own review found reviewers citing "added combat options and a faster overall pace" as genuine, specific improvements over this first game — which lines up exactly with what Book I's own sample independently complains about: slow movement and comparatively shallow combat. That consistency across two separately-sourced review samples, written about two different games three years apart, is stronger evidence than either sample alone that these were real, known shortcomings Basilisk Games itself moved to fix, not just an unlucky cluster of picky reviewers. It also means a player who finds this review's account of Book I's pacing and combat complaints persuasive has a direct, already-reviewed next step: Book II addresses several of them directly, for the price of continuing a story that, by design, won't resolve until the trilogy's third entry.

Verdict

Eschalon: Book I is a genuinely old-school CRPG that earns the comparisons its fans reach for — Ultima VII's systemic density, an early Elder Scrolls game's willingness to let a player get lost in detail — and it no longer asks anything of a player financially to find out if that's still appealing in 2026. What it does ask is patience: a walking pace and a fixed resolution that have not aged gracefully, and, for a real share of the current sample, a fight just to get the game running on a modern machine at all. Try it because it's free and because Basilisk Games' later entries in the series clearly listened to complaints like these — just go in knowing which game, exactly, you're getting.